Feds using more unmanned aircraft to secure border

Predator program is playing a larger role in the nation's border security

By Christopher Sherman The Virginian-Pilot

CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas — Two Border Patrol agents walked by a patch of brush on a remote ranch and saw nothing. But 19,000 feet overhead in the night sky, a Predator unmanned aircraft kept its heat-sensing eye on the spot.

In an operations center about 80 miles away, all eyes were on a suspicious dark cluster on a video screen. Moments later, the drone operators triggered the craft's infrared beam and directed the agents straight to the undergrowth, where two silent figures were hiding.